Customs to be fully automated by April 2026

The complete Customs operations in the country will be automated by April 2026, bringing more departments to the single window interface for facilitating trade (SWIFT). This will expedite the Customs clearance process. The vision is to increase ease of doing business and reduce turnaround time for cargo.

Revenue Secretary, Sanjay Malhotra, recently announced that the customs department was developing a fully automated trade interface system — ‘Customs 2.0’.

 The focus is to increase India’s ranking in the World Bank LPI Index.

“All payments, all interfaces with trade need to be automated so that everything is available at the click of a button,” he had stated. The complete system will become paperless with exporters not required to carry any physical copy of documents. A recent report by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs said that for imports, out of the 15 ports surveyed, nine have witnessed a reduction in the average release time in 2024 vis-a-vis the previous year. And for exports, the time taken for regulatory clearance of cargo reduced markedly for inland container depots and air cargo complexes.